In a bid to point out how Hollywood has gained notoriety in disregarding the laws of physics, we are going to analyze a scene in the popular American superhero film Guardians of the Galaxy, one of marvel studios productions released in 2014.
I will single out one scene that takes place towards the end of the film where the tree-like humanoid Groot sacrifices himself to save his colleagues as the Dark Aster is about to crash onto the surface of planet Xandar. Groot allows his plant body to rapidly grow and form a thick nest of twigs and roots which he uses to shield other group members from the impact of the crush. It turns out to be a worthy sacrifice as the entire group actually survive the violent crush except himself.
Can this scene be applied in real life? For example, to save the lives of crew members when a space ship or a passenger plane comes crushing down from thousands of miles above the earth’s surface. The only way to tell is by application of the laws of physics to analyze that situation.
The main principle we shall apply is Newton’s law of universal gravitation to determine the force of impact between the warship and the surface of planet Xandar. The following variables will be used in the calculations:
Gravitational constant denoted by G
Mass of planet Xandar M1
Mass of the Dark Aster M2
The distance between the centers of the two bodies r. This will also be assumed to the distance between the two bodies.
Additionally, the following assumptions were made:
Planet Xandar has the same mass as the earth.
Gravitational acceleration in planet xandar is the same as that on earth
Let us carry out some calculations to determine the feasibility of this particular scene in real life.
I will estimate the masses of the two objects namely; planet Xandar and the Dark Aster and their occupants to be 5.972×10˄24kgs and 500000kgs respectively. The distance between the two bodies is approximately 54.6 million kilometers which is also assumed that it is the distance between the centers of planet Xandar and the Dark Aster.
Using newton’s law of universal gravitation, we can calculate the force of impact of the Dark Aster on the surface of planet Xandar.
Approximately
Substituting values;
=×5.972×10˄24×5.0×10˄5/5.46×10˄10
=3.648×10˄29N
The force acting on the smaller mass which is the warship is given by Newton’s second law of motion, this is;
5.010˄5×9.81
4.905×10˄6N
The resulting forces are quite enormous as seen from the calculations above. This means that the amount of heat produced from the impact will be in the tune of millions of degrees. No matter what amount of caution is used by the occupants of the crashing body, the amount of heat precipitated on impact will literally melt every single part of the Dark Aster. On the contrary, quill and his other three colleagues emerge from the rabble with minor injuries. Most of the warship is also left intact with huge segments scattered all over the place. In a typical scenario, the warship’s body would divide into very tiny particles that can be compared to those of dust or ashes upon impact. This is because the distance between planet Nebula where the warship was before accelerating downwards and planet Xandar is too big, over 50 million kilometers apart in the least. If the warship keeps accelerating at a constant value of 9.81m/s2, the momentum gained in the course of the fall will be beyond imagination. In fact the best way to put it is that the entire Dark Aster will actually vaporize to nothing before arriving at the surface of planet Xandar.
Given the big mass of the warship which is 5.0×10˄5 kilograms, it would have created a huge dent on the ground upon impact irrespective of what is on the ground that time. Buildings and everything else would have been crushed out of existence. This is not the case in the movie, unfortunately. What we are shown is nothing more than an accident scene where two light cars have collided.
There is also another flaw in that scene that can be pointed out using the laws of physics. The body seemed to be falling in a fixed trajectory with the occupants remaining seated undisturbed. Given that it was not falling through an empty space, it was bound to be bombarded by the particles of matter making it come down rolling and probably disintegrate before touching the ground.
If the scene in question was to be applied in real life, the results will be disastrous. Before the body gets ignited, the force upon impact alone will instantly kill all the occupants and reduce the warship to very tiny fragments. It will be like the epicenter of a nuclear bomb explosion.
Another reason that makes the scene in question inapplicable in the real world is the fact that the Dark Aster is too big and cannot be easily put into space. Even if this were possible, it will be quite an expensive task if you consider the amount of fuel and type of materials that will be used to achieve that.
This is enough proof that the producers of that film disregarded the laws of physics to a very big extend in this particular scene. The level of exaggeration cannot be overlooked here.
The logical conclusion we can draw from that movie scene is that such things will only remain possible in movies. It is quite infeasible in the real world because the laws of physics won’t allow it. If it were not for the purposes of entertainment, marvel films should have been banned since they have no educational value, they are in fact very misleading.
